Category Archives: Meanings of life / death / social & moral stuff

Reflection on Tár

[Spoilers to follow, in case you’re worried!] We recently watched the film Tár starring Cate Blanchette. It’s a film with a lot, I mean a lot, of talking. We split our watching over two days. But the acting was so … Continue reading

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The face at the bottom of the well

The most important thing is this: what you experience, what you think, what you believe has no deep connection to what is real. Kant had this single truth exactly right: everything we think we know about the world is mostly … Continue reading

Posted in Meanings of life / death / social & moral stuff, Metaphysical musings | 2 Comments

Knowing in a society

Some people think that knowledge is something in the head. I have a belief, and it has appropriate connections to other ideas and beliefs, all in my head. These connections ensure that my belief has good grounding or justification: I … Continue reading

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Justin E. H. Smith, “Garbage, Human Beings”

“Social media have gutted institutions: journalism, education, and increasingly the halls of government too. When Marjorie Taylor Greene displays some dumb-as-hell anti-communist Scooby-Doo meme before congress, blown up on poster-board and held by some hapless staffer, and declares “This meme … Continue reading

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Thinking about being stupid

“None of this – being imprecise, not quite understanding the import of what one is saying, not being as secure in one’s knowledge as one wishes or thinks – comes close to being anything like the condition of radical intellectual … Continue reading

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To hell with “culture”

[WARNING: This post reads suspiciously like an old man’s grumping.] I think that among many of today’s “content generators” there is a supposition that there is a big conversation going on, among many intellectual people, across the globe, about a … Continue reading

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Kant, Hegel, and how to be enlightened citizens

[Reflections on reading Robert B. Brandom, “Some Pragmatist Themes in Hegel’s Idealism”, in his book Tales of the Mighty Dead (Harvard UP, 2002).] Both Kant and Hegel were writing in a time of thorough-going Enlightenment. For the most part they … Continue reading

Posted in Historical episodes, Kant and/or Hume, Meanings of life / death / social & moral stuff | 2 Comments

IAI: The self in the cloud

…But these scientists and philosophers are forgetting about locks. Just as keys have the shapes they have because of the locks they fit, people have the selves they have because of the lives they fit. My memories and beliefs are … Continue reading

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3QD: A Dialogue on Politics as Game

Bill: Can you believe these Republicans?! Just four years after swearing up and down that no nominee for the Supreme Court should ever be approved in an election year for the president, and promising on their mothers’ graves that they … Continue reading

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Back to 3QuarksDaily

After a bit of a break, I’m going to resume contributing monthly essays at 3QuarksDaily. The first essay is now up, alongside the fascinating essays, poems, and insights from the other contributors. How To Be Kind “There’s only one rule … Continue reading

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Minds as predictive engines

(Reading Andy Clark, Surfing Uncertainty (Oxford UP 2015)) I’m no longer sure I know what an “ordinary” theory of mind would look like, but I’m guessing that it would resemble an organized camp of explorers. The explorers, or our senses, venture … Continue reading

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On the Other Delphic Maxims

Now up at Aeon. The conclusion: The fact that the great majority of maxims on the list can still serve us today is itself worth further reflection. There is no denying that our lives have changed a lot in the … Continue reading

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Wisdom from Whitman, Camus, and Mae West

I am a body. I have been “designed”, through mishap and random success in an ever- changing environment, for millions of years. The result is astonishing: a pumping heart, breathing lungs, and a bewildering array of chemical processes that allow … Continue reading

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The Challenge of Being Vertical

Sloterdijk, Peter. You Must Change Your Life, translated by Wieland Hoban (Polity, 2013) We construct for ourselves ideals that taunt us, pull us upwards, and change our lives. This is fixed; but the the nature of those ideals, as well … Continue reading

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The Hope of Concepts (or, some sorely needed arch support)

(Loosely reflecting while re-reading Peter Sloterdijk’s You Must Change Your Life…) As in Spheres, PS’s aim is to create (or at least open up a space for) a new life-support system for humans, a post-religious quasi-religion grounded in practice and … Continue reading

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